New protesters bring new weapons to water wars

The new generation fighting to save the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon brings some fresh and interesting tactics to this long, continuing battle.

Sally Swartz

The Indian River Lagoon north of St. Lucie County is suffering a die-off of sea grasses and record numbers of deaths of manatees, dolphins and pelicans.
The St. Lucie River is suffering a bloom of toxic blue-green algae that make local waters dangerous to fishermen, boaters, swimmers and waders. The district and Corps have been dumping billions of gallons of freshwater polluted with fertilizers and pesticides from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River on the east coast and the Caloosahatchee River on Florida’s west coast.
The lake, too high from seasonal rains and runoff from farms, is stressing the dike that surrounds it, making it a candidate for a Katrina-like disaster if water is not released.
For the first time, organizing protests via social media (Facebook) has brought people of all ages out to wave signs, chant and protest at two weekend events. The first, Aug. 3 at the St. Lucie Locks, drew a crowd estimated at up to 5,000. The second, Aug. 11, drew enough people to form a line along the Atlantic shoreline from Stuart Beach to Jensen Beach and spell out “Save Our Rivers.” Crowd estimates varied from 2,500 to 5,000.
See video of the protest here.
Evan Miller and Clint Starling, who organized the first two, are joining the third, billed as the Sugarland protest, Sept. 1 from noon to 3 p.m. at Clewiston’s Sugarland Park and vow to plan more after that.
Read about the Sugarland protest, bringing together people from the east and west coasts of Florida, here.
The new protesters are less than impressed with the tactics the South Florida Water Management District and the Corps use to silence critics.
For starters, the district and Corps have perfected a “bore them and they will go away” technique of overwhelming residents with slide shows and technical data designed for engineers and water bureaucrats, not for the general public.
At a meeting of the Water Resources Advisory Commission in Jensen Beach, officials managed to clear out an angry crowd of about 150 in an hour with yawner slide shows. One presenter admitted a slide of a graph packed with writing too tiny to read was unintelligible to all but the most technically savvy. So why include it?
Longtime river advocates such as Maggy Hurchalla, a former Martin commissioner who has been active in Everglades and Indian River Lagoon restoration planning, posted brief, easy-to-understand information on the river rally site and call-to-action invitations to attend water district meetings. Florida Oceanographic Society’s Mark Perry also has a clear slide show about the Plan Six solution.
One protester found something very entertaining to record with his cell phone at the WRAC meeting. This video, which more than 4,000 have viewed on YouTube, shows officials from the water district, the Corps and the sugar industry playing with their cell phones and other electronic devices while the public, and specifically in the video, an Audubon representative, speak.
In previous “save the river” protests over the years, many felt that officials were not listening.
The video shows them not even pretending to pay attention. It’s titled, “Thanks for not listening.”
Saving the rivers is no short-term project. Some Martin residents have been at it for a lifetime. But it’s heartening to see a new generation bring new weapons to this ongoing war. Telling the truth isn’t the only important thing to do, but it’s the first step.Sally Swartz is a former member of The Post Editorial Board. Her e-mail address is sdswartz42@att.net